Spring Awakening – Charity, Chastity, Choreography
Every generation thinks they invented sex. Spring Awakening is how they invented it under the Second Reich. Wolf Pack Theatre Company brings you this oft-censored 1890 play which was revamped as a musical in 2006 to win eight Tony Awards.
Co-director William Leary usually chooses dark and heavy adult subject matter, and continues to do so with Spring Awakening – this time with adolescents.
I had the pleasure of spending a Saturday evening with Donald and all of the talents that make up the Arena Players. I love this company. They are not just Baltimore treasures; they are gifts to art now and for generations to come. For six and a half decades they have been the consistent home for black theatre in our city, training artists, giving opportunity to performers and designers, and producing canonical and new work.
“The history of the world, my love, is those below serving those up above.” The daunting lyrics of Stephen Sondheim seem to echo through our world at present, where at the top are seated those privileged few making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo, and what better way to exemplify this than to take one of Sondheim’s darker musical classics and spin it on its head in a modern vent? Rep Stage is giving you Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with this concept firmly in mind.
Memory is a funny thing; how we remember and what we remember, though oft going hand in hand, are truly two separate details, neither of which can ever accurately portray the past. But is it the event that needs remembering or the way you felt as it was happening? Is it the people who need remembering or the way they smiled through the moment that you remember? Everyman Theatre takes a comfortable stroll down memory lane to open their 2018/2019 season with the Irish classic Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel.
One button more…one button less… the death of one child is devastating. The death of two is unfathomable. After losing both of his children in their infancy, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi gave birth to 27 children… that would outlive him to this very day: his operas. And yet one evaded him to the end. Though he tried numerous times, Verdi was never able to compose Shakespeare’s King Lear, despite having created several other operas baring the Bard’s titles.
“How do rumors get started, they’re started by the jealous people and….,” no wait, that was the Timex Social Club. We’re talking Neil Simon’s Rumors at The Colonial Players. The Maryland General Assembly may not be in session but Director Atticus Cooper Boidy has Annapolis all a buzz. Simply put, Mr. Boidy delivers perhaps the best production you’ll see in the state capitol this year. His understanding of comedic timing and how to navigate a farce is incredible.
War does horrific things to people. A reality that our country is still struggling to come to grips with; we send young boys off to fight battles, to lose their humanity when they kill other human beings. They return home with PTSD, survivor’s guilt, strung-out and self-medicating, often taking their own lives. Robert Garcia’s Unlucky Soldiers is an semi-autobiographical experience of returning home from the Vietnam War and the war within himself that rages on long past the combat “in the Nam” has ceased.
In the beginning we were one. There was no right and no wrong. But then someone invented right and wrong, where right is for all of us and wrong is just for you. Go to the Maryland Ensemble Theatre to see Hand to God…RIGHT. Skip out on seeing Maryland Ensemble Theatre’s Hand to God…WRONG. And you do not want to be in the wrong when it comes to this darkened,
Are you where you want to be and who you want to be and doing what you always said you would? Tidewater Players, the resident theatre company of Havre de Grace, is where they want to be and who they want to be and doing what they always said they would! Making a bold move by opening their 2018/2019 season with a politically charged production of Chess (the musical in concert), Tidewater Players stands to set the tone for their season with this shocking opening gambit.
How goes the world? A loaded question if ever there was one to be asked, especially in this day and age. But set yourself back from this day and age, set your dial of existence back to 1978 in order to prepare yourself to digest The Rude Mechanicals’ latest offering: Timon of Athens. Directed by Joshua Engel, this miscreant play of Williams Shakespeare’s is finding a new lens through which to be viewed in the hands of The Rude Mechanicals.
Times have changed!
And though the classics seem dead and gone—
The audiences’ sing right along
To those Cole Porter tunes at September Song!
In olden days a normal stage show, was the summer’s end event to go to—
But now, God knows! It’s Anything Goes! The 2018 summer selection for September Song has all the Cole Porter classics wrapped up in a romantic romp and funny farce on a Trans-Atlantic pleasure cruise filled with music and mayhem,
“When someone in your social circle becomes so melancholic that they stop moving, it is your duty as a human being to go find them.” So proclaims Tilly, the lead character in Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce, currently being produced by Constellation Theatre Company. Directed by Nick Martin, the play takes the audience on an abstract dive through sadness, happiness, and the social contract. Constellation’s production perfectly captures the spirit of melancholy,
Shakespeare Theatre Company is in its 28th year of presenting the annual Free for All program, offering free productions every summer. This year features Romeo & Juliet, the STC’s most often-produced play, as directed by STC Associate Artistic Director Alan Paul. STC’s Free for All emphasizes accessible, relatable Shakespeare, and in that goal, this production excels. For those who have never seen Romeo & Juliet,
Dada comes to Baltimore in the raw and intimate experience that is the world premiere of Terminal Lucidity, written by Amy Bernstein and directed by Melanie S. Armer. This work, presented by Baltimore’s own Theatre Project, brings to the stage a look at the dark and damaging political path America may currently be treading through the experiences of the women affected by the “monster in her midst.”
Dada in and of itself means… nothing.
Sardines! You won’t forget the sardines! Or the boxes. Or the bags. Or the words by the time you get finished with Noises Off at The Cumberland Theatre this summer. Directed by Matt Bannister, this zany, maniacal, and marvelous farce will have you rolling in the aisles with gut-bursting laughter from start to finish. Better than Waiting for Guffman, with twice as much hilarity as any backstage antics that cook up as they do during any theatrical engagement,
“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd… his skin was pale and his eye was odd… he shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”.”
The opening lines to the haunting and delightfully disturbing Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street still have the power to chill and unsettle audiences,
Once Upon a Time, in a land before MTV and CMT, artists had to work their way to the top and pay their dues. When radio playlists weren’t laid down and dictated from corporate but left to the discretion and tastes of disc jockeys, determination, talent, and a ton of miles on your worn out car could earn you the fans and the prestige to become a bona fide star. Such is the tale of the legendary Patsy Cline.
“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.” – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
If there were a conceivable method to resuscitate the dead, would you want to use it? How far would you go to achieve this goal? What if it all went horribly awry? Fictional character Victor Frankenstein attempts to do just that in an infamous novel published in 1818 by author Mary Shelley.
Nubia will never die! And Baltimore’s own ArtsCentric is making sure of this is a known fact in their production of Aida, with music by Elton John, Lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang. Kevin S. McAllister, Cedric D. Lyles, and Shalyce N. Hemby skillfully band together to bring a first-rate rendition of this timeless love story.
Kevin S. McAllister does a masterful job with his direction of this production.
Though at first it may seem clownish, see the world more upside-downish! Turn it on it’s head and pirouette it! Anything can happen if you let it…and you’re letting it happen at the West Arundel Creative Arts Center when you go to see Atypical Perspectives: An Evening of One-Act Plays written by Jeff Dunne. While the sole connective thread of the six one-act plays appears to be only that they share the same author,
Come feel the room swayin’! Hear the band playin’ one of my old favorite shows from way back when! Well, golly gee, people, you gotta come and see, people— Hello, Dolly! at Glyndon Area Players before its run does end! Revitalizing a classic in all its glorious vivacity, Director Homero Bayarena, Musical Directors Andrew Zile and Tom Zepp, and Choreographers Cecelia, Lucy, and Maia DeBaugh, elevate the grandeur of this timelessly classic piece of musical theatre and bring a stellar production to the Glyndon Area Players this 2018 summer season.
Sacrifice Your Sour Outlook and Enjoy Rapid Lemon’s Variations on Sacrifice at Theatre Project
Rapid Lemon Productions presents the annual “Variations” collection; this year’s production is directed by Lance Bankerd. The theme this year, chosen by last year’s audiences, is Sacrifice. Baltimore Theatre Project is housed in a building that is 125 years old, and we find it significantly more comfortable on a summer evening than on a winter afternoon.
For me, the theatre is not a slice of life but a piece of cake. And there is a tremendously foreboding and utterly delicious cake of terror awaiting to delight the masses at Fluid Movement’s annual water ballet. This year they’re modeling their efforts after one of the silver screen masters of the macabre, the true prince of filmed darkness and serving up a whopping splash of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Water Ballet.
Hey, sister, whatcha gon’ do? Goin’ down by the Potomac River, gonna see The Color Purple with you. In a striking reimagination of the iconic novel turned film turned stage musical, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts proudly presents The Color Purple, a Menier Chocolate Factory Production. Directed and Conceptualized by John Doyle, with Musical Direction and Pit Conduction by Darryl Archibald, this stunning story is reinvented with simplicity at its aesthetic core,
Happiness is finding a pencil, pizza with sausage, telling the time. Happiness is learning to whistle, tying your shoe for the very first time. Happiness is playing the drum in your own school band, and happiness is spending an evening with the cast and crew of Artistic Synergy of Baltimore’s You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, Directed by Melissa Broy Fortson, with Musical Direction by Michelle Bruno.
ASoB has elevated their production from show status to a concept,
If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly. With expedience and precision one can readily say 4615 Theatre Company’s production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth were done both well and quickly. Directed by Jordan Friend, this intimate production unfolds in the laps of the audience, shaking tremors of terror and raw Shakespearean storytelling into the minds of 30 individuals at a time, ensuring that they shall burn for dreams restlessly and indeed sleep no more.
Quotidian Theatre Company’s An Irish Twist on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Leah Mazade and Stephanie Mumford, and set in 1817 Galway, Ireland, embraced the fun in the original text while putting a uniquely, playfully Irish spin on the setting. This creative re-imagining is a delight to watch, and the talented cast, crew, and musicians create an engaging, uplifting revival of Shakespeare’s classic fairytale.
Midsummer follows the plight of two young women,
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! But what happens at the Rice Auditorium with STAR Ltd. needs to be broadcast on a big blinking billboard! The 2018 sizzling summer production— Honeymoon in Vegas— is that zany, whacky weekend everyone wishes they could have in the great Nevadan desert oasis! Directed by Michael Juba with Musical Direction by Cheryl Campo, Pit Conduction by David Wacyk, and Choreography by Lauren Lowell, this hilarious musical comedy with a whole lotta heart and a hunka hunka burnin’— Elvii?!?
In the final days of the summer of 1955, a definitive cultural event rocked teenaged America when screen idol James Dean was killed in a car accident at the age of 24. Having starred in only three major films (Rebel Without a Cause. East of Eden, and Giant), he defined the prototypical rebellious, misunderstood teen and resonated with American youth unlike any actor ever. Despite his minimal time in the public eye,
All’s fair in love and war. Shakespeare said it. Well, he didn’t actually. In fact, he wrote a whole bunch of plays that seemed to prove the opposite of fairness in war and especially in love. Much Ado About Nothing, one of the less-troubled comedies, is one such that is now making its way to outdoor (and temporarily indoor) stages by way of Gypsy Wagon Theatre Company this summer. Directed by Bill Soucy,